CHAPTER IV: 
BACTERIOLOGY OF FaicES—(continued). 
STREPTOCOCCI IN FACES. 
It is well-known to all acquainted with the bacteriology 
of feces that streptococci of various classes are extremely 
common in this material. The honour of investigating the 
subject belongs to Dr. Houston who, as early as 1898, pub- 
lished his work on the presence of these cocci both in water and 
in feces. It is with his more recent work that our results 
will be compared, in order to show the differences that appear 
to exist between England and India. As pointed out by 
Dr. Houston, streptococci are extremely numerous in feces. 
in European countries. In fact, he says that they are, roughly 
speaking, about as numerous as the coliform organisms. By 
obtaining a hundred stabs from different masses of faeces 
obtained at a sewage works, he estimates that the number of 
organisms in a gramme of feces works out about as follows :— 
1 Streptococcus was isolated from 1-10,000,ocooth gramme 
of the faecal mixture. 
27 Streptococci were isolated from 1-1,c00,occth gramme of 
the faecal mixture. 
72 Streptococci were isolated from 1-100,oocth gramme of 
the faecal mixture. 
Table No. IV (a) gives the results of the enumeration of 
the number of streptococci in feces in this country. The 
first series were carried out as follows :— 
A gramme of feeces was mixed with g c.c. of tap water: 
and a series of dilutidhs was made; these were made I-10, 
I-100, I-I,000, etc. The presence of streptococci were sought 
for ini c.c. of these dilutions in the usual way, by wiping the 
mixture over Conradi Drigalski plates. The highest dilution 
that showed any small colonies which microscopically proved 
to be streptococci is given in this Table. 
